


A Yellow Card

by redchemist



Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: F/F, One-Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-21
Updated: 2017-08-21
Packaged: 2018-12-18 01:57:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11864256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redchemist/pseuds/redchemist
Summary: Becky decides to have a chat with her girlfriend after she picks up a reckless yellow card at the end of the CRS vs FCKC game.





	A Yellow Card

“A yellow card? Really Alyssa?” Becky sighed and put her hands on her hips as she stared at her girlfriend. The pair had just played against each other in a friendly at Toyota Park in Chicago. FC Kansas City pulled out a 3-1 win. In the last minutes of the game, Shea Groom was looking to have a break away. Alyssa had made a risky tackle right outside the box and had gotten a yellow from the ref for it.

“Yeah. What of it? I had to make a play. I was not conceding four goals in a game Becky. I refuse.” Alyssa was in no mood to explain herself. Her team had dropped all 3 games at home this week. They went from looking like a lock for the playoffs to questionable in a week.

“And what if you had gotten a red card? Then what would your team do?” Becky was not willing to let it go. It wasn’t like her girlfriend to be this reckless on the field.

“I told you Becky I am in no mood to discuss this right now. We have to go breakdown this loss. So please just shake my hand and let me go.” Alyssa snapped.

“Alright. Alright.” Becky shook her hand and gave it a squeeze at the end. They could do this later, when there weren’t teammates, fans, coaches, and cameras all watching.

The two women separated. Alyssa went to her defensive teammates at the center circle and sat down to join them, wanting to stretch out her groin. Becky went to her squad near their bench.

“Trouble in paradise?” Katie Bowen asked.

“No. Yeah. I don’t know.” Becky sighed. “I hate playing her. And something is even weirder tonight. Maybe it’s their slump, I don’t know. Hopefully we can hash it out after all this.”

“You two always do.” Desiree Scott threw an arm around her captain. “Give her time to shake this off, we will all go out for dinner, and things will get better.”

“Don’t you dare let her sully this win Cap. We needed this.” Erika Tymrak tossed a water bottle at Becky, who caught it easily.

“I won’t. Don’t you worry.” Becky grinned and took a long drink. It had been a long, hard fought game and they had walked away with three very important road points. “Hey, Syd, can I ask you a favor?”

\---

Alyssa plopped next to Michele Dalton in the center circle and took the water bottle her backup offered to her. She glanced up and met the eyes of Katie Naughton, Julie Johnston, Arin Gilliland, Casey Short, Christen Press, and Taylor Comeau. Their eyes were all downcast and defeated. She was sure her eyes showed the same. They weren’t clicking, the chemistry wasn’t there, and every game mattered. They were only making the playoff push harder on themselves.

“What the fuck just happened?” It was Julie who gave voice to their thoughts.

“We lost. To Kansas. At home.” Katie sighed out, rubbing the back of her neck.

“Yeah I know. But how? I don’t want to blame the refs. But they were bad. I tried to talk to Rory about it, but he told me to go cool off and we could talk in a few. But didn’t you hear the fans? They saw it too.” Julie groaned.

“We weren’t us. We aren’t clicking. We all saw it. At one point, we had me, you, Chris, and Rory all yelling. That didn’t used to happen. We used to know when to push and when to be quiet. Now we are all trying to be heard. It is like we are a team trying to get together at the beginning of the season.” Alyssa moaned as she stretched out her groin. It had tightened up during the game and was starting to annoy her.

“I wasn’t myself tonight.” This time it was Christen who spoke up. “I am sorry guys. I tried but gosh my touch was awful and I didn’t make my pk.”

“Chris, you still tried. You still ran down balls and went up for headers. You, JJ, and Yuki were all over the field tonight. So, your touch wasn’t there. We can’t pin this game on you. We can’t pin it on anyone.” Arin made sure to lock eyes with her captain.

“Thanks Gilly.” Christen gave her a shy smile and they all just sat in a comfortable silence. They knew Rory would want to talk and that the fans were waiting, but right now, they couldn’t handle them. They just needed a minute to breathe. 

\---

“Yo. Naeher. Stand up.” Alyssa groaned. She was not in the mood to deal with Syd with a Kid right now. She was always insufferable whenever she scores on one of the national team keepers. “Oh shut it and stand up.”

“Fine. What?” Alyssa stood and turned around.

“Take the baby.” Syd handed Cassius to a surprised goalkeeper. “Babies make you happy. And you need to keep that head up and cheer up. Give him back to me when you are happy.”

“Oh. Ok.” Alyssa took the adorable baby boy and settled him on her hip. He laughed and grabbed at her face. The goalkeeper couldn’t fight the smile that tugged at her face as she grabbed his hand. He cooed at her. That made the stern woman melt every time. The grin spread across her face as Rory walked over to talk to his team.

\---

“So… can we talk now?” Becky was freshly showered and leaning up against the trunk of Alyssa’s black SUV. She told the team bus to go on without her. She would catch a ride with the goalkeeper and meet up with the few of them who were up for joining up with the Red Stars at dinner.

“I guess we better.” Alyssa popped the trunk and gestured for Becky to move. The defender stepped away and both women threw their bags in the back of the SUV. Alyssa gave her girlfriend a short kiss before they both went around to the front and slid into the front seats. Alyssa threw on the air conditioning and turned down her radio. Both women threw on their seatbelts and Alyssa pulled out of the parking lot.

“What was up with you tonight? That yellow card is not like you at all. That was reckless and you, quite frankly, are lucky it was not a red card and that you aren’t suspended the next game. Not to mention you could have hurt Shea, who is already having a very rough season. Sam Johnson broke her ribs at the beginning of the season.” Worry colored Becky’s tone as she took her girlfriend’s hand in her own. Her thumb ran over the goalkeeper’s knuckles, caressing the calluses there.

“I know. I know. It was stupid. But at that point in the game, I didn’t know what else to do. We were losing. Badly. I had already let in one embarrassing goal. I got fucking chipped because my coach kept yelling at everyone to push up and I listened even though I thought it was a bad idea. So I had to do something. Anything. To keep that fourth goal from happening. If that meant making a risky play, so be it. I am glad Shea is ok. I didn’t want to hurt her. I just didn’t know what else to do.” Alyssa’s voice wavered as she spoke. This was supposed to be their year. The year the Red Stars proved everyone wrong and made it to the championship, maybe even won the dang thing. They had the pieces, they had the drive. But for some unknown reason, they were crashing and burning in the almost home stretch. It drove the goalkeeper crazy. Was it her fault?

“Hey. Hey. Get out of your head. Teams go through rises and falls. Players have bad games. How many times have we said it? How often have we said those exact same words to our teammates when things get rough? You and your team will get past this. FCKC was in a slump earlier this season and look at us now. We are finding our groove again. You all will find yours.”  
“It might be too late for that Becks. We are at the point of our season where every game counts. And we just dropped 9 points at home. Toyota Park is supposed to be our fortress. Now it is leaking goals. I am leaking goals.”

“You are not leaking goals. I watched that game against the Thorns. You did everything you could to keep your team on the board. They were good goals. And that free kick was just unlucky. You didn’t play against Seattle. Your defense collapsed at the end of the Seattle game, not just Dalton. And tonight? Tonight, you tried. So what if you didn’t make the best decisions. You and I both know you will learn from them when you go back and watch the game footage. You always do. And next time you will ignore your coach when he tells you to push up that far because you won’t want to get caught again. You will be better. You always are. That is part of what makes you, you.” Becky spoke with conviction. She had faith in her girlfriend to turn herself around – she always did. She just needed to learn how to cope with the stress of playing almost nonstop for a year at both the league and national team levels. It was difficult and they all went through it. Alyssa would come out of the other side soon.

“Thanks Becks. And thank you for sending Syd over with Cassius. I know that was you.” Alyssa blinked back tears as she pulled into Portillo’s parking lot.

“You needed to cheer up. You had a hell of a game and Cash always makes you smile.”

“Yeah.” Alyssa chuckled and swiped at her eyes. “Yeah he does. Just until we have ours of course.”

“Of course. Our children will be much, much cuter than he is.”

“Because you will braid their hair and make sure their clothes have no sleeves on them?”

“Only when we are training them how to play soccer. You can’t play soccer with sleeves in the way.”

“You would make a terrible goalkeeper. Your arms would be scarred for days.” Alyssa leaned over the center console and kissed Becky’s cheek. “Seriously. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome honey. I am always going to cheer for you, except for the 90 minutes I play against you. But the minute that clock stops, I am here.” Becky grinned. “Now let’s get inside and see if Ragamuffin and the rest of your sorry band of stars have devoured everything to eat or if they were kind enough to leave something for us.”

The chuckle that brought out of Alyssa was the most beautiful thing Becky heard that night. Her goalkeeper would be just fine when she went back to Kansas City.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, we lost. So I had to do something to keep myself from going to the dark, twisty part of my mind because this week has been crap and soccer is usually my happy place but it isn't very happy at the moment. This was the result. So, let me know what you think.  
> -Red


End file.
